


The Power of Hope

by orphan_account



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aged-Up Character(s), Alien Invasion, Alien Technology, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bullying, Drama, Eventual Romance, F/F, Gen, Good versus Evil, High School, Magical Girls, Moemura, Not Beta Read, POV First Person, Things are better but not a walk in the park
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:28:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26805880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The Incubators. A cold and calculating race who've used humans since their appearance on the planet to obtain energy so that they can perpetuate the universe's existence... Eventually, magical girls, the ones who were used, decided they had enough. They stood up to these heartless aliens, stole the technology they used to create magical girls, and reversed engineered it. In the present, a war between the Magical Girl Organization and the Incubators is going on in the shadows, with most humans none the wiser. Despite their beliefs, we evolved on our own, while still managing to repel their advances. In this environment, the girls we know fight...
Relationships: Akemi Homura & Kaname Madoka, Akemi Homura/Kaname Madoka, Miki Sayaka & Sakura Kyouko, Miki Sayaka/Sakura Kyouko
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. Prophetic Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a very strange dream, Homura heads to her new school, Mitakihara High, on her first day out of the hospital. There, she meets a girl she saw in her dream...

_The skies are red. What’s scary about it is that it’s the middle of the night, and not even close to twilight. Yes, the skies are red… They’re red because they’re alight with the fires of war._

_Most of what is going on is incomprehensible to most people. They run around, panicking, unable to understand anything but the simple fact that their lives are endangered. The red skies are free of clouds, but it wouldn’t look like that from the ground, as it is filled to the brim with vehicles. Vehicles piloted by an evil race trying to use humanity for their own purposes._

_Protecting them, however, are young girls who have transcended human existence. Girls who gave up their right to a normal life in order to defend their world. Girls capable of unimaginable feats. And, in the center of it all, there are five girls. Pink, blue, yellow, red and purple… Yes, purple… I seem to be represented by that colour. I am the girl whose power shines purple, and I am standing beside the girl in pink. I look to her, and she gives me the warm smile that she always has, despite all the danger around us._

_“We can do it together, Homura!” she says, then summons her magic bow into her hand._

_I nod at her, and I summon my own bow. We knock our magic arrows and take aim at the ship casting its shadows above us…_

* * *

Then I open my eyes and see a white ceiling.

I sit up, take my surroundings in, and once I recognise the familiar hospital room, I sigh. “What a weird dream…” I mumble.

Pulling the sheets off of myself, I reach for my glasses, put them on, stand up and look at the calendar hanging from the wall with a frown. _Today’s the day I’ll be transferred to Mitakihara High, huh?_ I heave another sigh. _I’m really not looking forward to going back to school…_

Resigned, I shower, change into my new uniform, and braid my hair while I wait for the nurse who’s been taking care of me to arrive with breakfast. While I’m trying, and failing, to fix the uniform’s ribbon, I hear a knock on the door.

“Homura? May I come in?”

“Yeah, go ahead…” I answer automatically, frustrated about being unable to tie a ribbon properly.

She enters, closing the door behind her, carrying two trays of food. She quickly sets them down on the table by the bed, comes to stand beside me and gently pushes my hands away from the ribbon so she can tie it herself, making me sigh in frustration once more.

“I had it…”

“Did you, now?” she asks, then chuckles a little. “Don’t worry about it, Homura. You haven’t worn anything other than a hospital robe in quite a while, after all” she says as she finishes up with the ribbon. She straightens up once she’s done. “There. You look… pretty cute in that uniform, you know?” she compliments with a smile.

I look at the mirror again with a sad expression. “I wonder…”

She sighs in response. “I know you’re not excited about going back to school, especially after having spent the better part of a year locked up in this hospital, but you have to, right? Graduating is important for your future,” the kindly nurse named Natsuki Aonuma, who’s been taking care of me as a sort of surrogate mother ever since my parents died, tells me in her gentle but still firm tone.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I did put the uniform on without you nagging me about it, didn’t I?” I respond, turning to face her.

She chuckles in response. “Yeah, I guess you did. I was a bit surprised, to be honest.”

I sigh in mock-sadness. “I swear, you have no faith in me…” I mutter as I walk to the bed and sit down once more.

She widens her eyes, then laughs in response. “Sorry, sorry. I guess that came out wrong…” she says, still laughing a little, and follows me to the bed as well

I giggle a little in amusement, then take my own tray before looking at Natsuki with a small smile. “Still, thank you for bringing my food here,” I say, then begin to eat.

She takes her own tray as she answers. “It’s the least I can do, after all…”

We eat in silence. Despite having joked around with her a little, I’m not really in a great mood, and she knows this. I’ve always dreaded school. While I can usually understand the subjects covered in class, I make the most stupid mistakes whenever I’m asked to do anything under pressure. I’m also clumsy, and get winded easily, so I’ve never been good at sports. Being prone to mistakes as well as a timid person always gets the attention of those who like to pick on others for their own amusement. I wonder if things will be any different after being hospitalised for so long…

After we finish eating, Natsuki takes the trays and stands up. “You know, I’m really glad you’re finally getting discharged from the hospital…” she comments.

I pause, then give a small smile. “Yeah, I guess that is a good thing…”

“You get going now. I’ll go home later and clean up your room for you later, alright?” she proposes with a smile.

I pout in response. “C’mon, I’m sixteen years old, already! You don’t need to dote on me like this…”

She laughs once more. “Please, let me do it! I want to.”

I sigh, though I’m sort of amused myself. “Fine, do whatever you want.”

“Also, if something happens at school, please let me know, alright?”

I avert my gaze awkwardly, then nod.

* * *

The way to school is fairly uneventful. I enter the building, head towards the teacher’s offices, and knock the door.

“Um… I-is Miss Saotome… here?” I timidly call out into the room.

A woman with light brown hair, wearing glasses, a green sweater and a white skirt looks up from her computer and looks towards me, then smiles, stands up, and heads towards me.

“Good day! You must be the new transfer student, right? Miss Homura Akemi?” she asks me amicably.

I tense up as she approaches, and give a small nod with my head lowered in response.

“Perfect! I was about to head to the classroom, so your timing couldn’t have been better!” She goes back to her desk and picks up a couple books. “Follow me,” she instructs as she exits the room, and I do as told.

We arrive at the classroom, and she tells me to wait outside while she gets homeroom started. I can’t really hear all that well due to the door being closed, but she seems to take longer than expected… She also appears to be very frustrated, and one male student who she interrogates about something seems to be somewhat flustered. _Strange… She seemed perfectly happy just a moment ago._

After a while, she appears to go back to her amicable state from before, then beckons me inside. _I suppose that’s my cue…_

I take a deep breath in preparation, then open the door and slowly walk towards the front of the class. “Introduce yourself, please,” Miss Saotomoe instructs, making me grit my teeth. _This part is the worst…_

“I-I’m… H-Homura Akemi... P-pleased to… meet you, a-all…” I manage to utter out while fingering the hem of my skirt. As I turn to write my name on the whiteboard, I swear I can see the teacher cringing a little in the periphery of my vision. _Well, I guess that’s to be expected. I’d cringe in her place, too._

I pick up the marker and slowly write my name, careful so that my shaking hand doesn’t ruin any of the five characters, then set implement back down and turn back around to see my new classmates. The strokes all look somewhat shaky, but I suppose it's readable enough…

While Miss Saotome explains my situation with the hospital and my heart condition, I tune her out and take a good look at the people populating my class. As expected, some of them look like they were cringing just now, too, and some others look amused. However, as I’m about to direct my gaze back down at the floor in defeat, I catch sight of something strange.

I let out a small gasp and look at the small girl seated towards the back, with pink hair, sporting a couple of cute red ribbons tying her pigtails in place. “It can’t be…” I mutter inaudibly. _Isn’t she the girl from my dream!?_

I look at her more, so stunned that I forget myself and the situation I’m currently in. She also seems to be surprised, though not nearly as much as myself. She looks towards a different student seated to the left and one row closer to the whiteboard than her, which directs my attention to this student as well. _Wait, wasn’t she in my dream, as well!?_ I think, even more bewildered than before. The girl with short, blue hair, who was looking at the pink-haired girl before, looks in my direction with interest, though she doesn’t seem surprised, then smiles a little.

Confused, I look towards the pink-haired girl once more, and she also seems to be smiling at me. Neither of them looks particularly cruel about it, either. _What’s going on…?_

“Miss Akemi? Is everything alright?” I hear from my right. I let out a surprised gasp and turn towards the teacher, who is leaning towards me, concerned.

I shake my head slightly, then place my hand on top of my head and look down to the floor, blushing madly. “Y-yes, everything’s alright! I-I’m sorry for… spacing out like that…”

She straightens out and sighs. “Well, why don’t you sit behind Mister Nakazawa?” she offers, and I nod, quickly taking the empty seat.

I am unable to concentrate on the lessons afterwards. I still can’t get over the fact that I dreamed about people I’m sure I’ve never met, only to meet them the next day.

* * *

Once the first break arrives, everyone seems to go about their business. Three girls look like they want to talk to me, but one of them shakes her head, causing the others to sigh and follow her out.

I rest my head on my arms, on top of my desk, and close my eyes, frustrated. _I saw this coming, but it’s still really frustrating for that to happen…_

Suddenly, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I look up to see the pink-haired girl leaning over me. “Hello?” she asks in a friendly tone.

I jump back with a start and a yelp, so forcefully that my glasses are knocked off-center, and I have to quickly reach up to readjust them before they fall off entirely. This causes the girl who tapped me on the shoulder earlier to raise her eyebrows in surprise.

I hear someone burst out into boisterous laughter over to my left, and when I turn to the source, I see the girl with blue hair again, who calls out to me afterwards. “Calm down, transfer student! Madoka doesn’t bite!” Her comment makes me blush madly again, and I gulp.

The pink-haired girl, apparently named Madoka, frowns and faces the blue-haired girl. “Sayaka, that’s mean!” she scolds, though it only serves to make the other girl laugh more.

“Hey, I’m just teasing!” she replies.

Madoka waves her hand dismissively at the other girl, then turns to me with the same warm smile from before. It serves to calm me down slightly. “Ignore her. I’m Madoka Kaname, and I’m the nurse’s aide of this class. Nice to meet you, Homura!

“H-Homura…?” I repeat, unused to hearing classmates refer to me by name.

“I heard you have to take your medicine at the nurse’s office on breaks. Do you know where it is?” she asks me.

“Uh… N-no…” I reply, averting my eyes.

“I’ll lead you there, then!” she announces, then lets out a small giggle. “Follow me!”

“Uh, r-right!” I quickly get up, and she gives me her warm smile once more before leading me out into the hallways.

“Um… M-Miss Kaname…? Uh, th-thank you… for l-leading me there…” I manage to tell her after a while.

“Oh, that?” she asks, then giggles again. “C’mon, it’s nothing! Just felt like helping out.” She looks at me over her shoulder. “Also, you can call me Madoka if you want.”

My blush, which was already starting to leave, comes back with a vengeance at the thought of treating a near-stranger so closely. “B-but that’s…”

“By the way, that girl from before? She’s my friend, Sayaka. She may be boisterous and someone who rarely settles down, but she’s a good girl, alright? She was really only playing earlier, so don’t hold it against her, alright?”

I fall silent, then give a short reply. “I… I won’t…” To be fair, her teasing earlier didn’t really feel cruel, nor did it make me feel bad, even if it did fluster me, so I suppose Madoka must be telling the truth. Still, it feels strange to be teased so innocently…

“Hey, can I ask a weird question?” she says after a short while.

“Hmm? Wh-what is it…?”

“Have we met somewhere? You seemed to be staring right at me earlier…”

I gasp in response, and quicken my pace to stand in front of her, bowing in apology. “I’m sorry! I just… Y-you… You looked like someone I knew once…” I say, stopping to rack my brain for a believable lie. _There’s no way she’ll believe I saw her in a dream…_

She giggles again, then waves her hand dismissively. “It’s fine, it’s fine! I’m the one who asked a weird question, so the one who should apologise is me,” she replies, and looks at me once I’ve raised my head back up. “I’m sorry,” she adds.

I clench my teeth, and quickly shake my head. “I-it’s fine! I… I understand why you did…” I reply as I avert my eyes and rub the back of my head.

She giggles once more. “We’re good, then!” she says as she takes the lead again. “I really like your name, by the way,” she comments suddenly.

“Wh-what? Why? It’s so… weird…”

“No, it’s cool! It sounds almost like you’ll light the flames of passion or something!” she says excitedly.

I avert my eyes once more. “Then I guess it doesn’t fit me…”

She stops and turns to face me. “Well, you can make it fit, then! You already have a cool name. That’s half the battle already, right?”

I simply stare at her wide-eyed. Having no response, all I can do is nod.

Making some smalltalk about class, Madoka leads me to the nurse’s office, then leaves, saying she has to meet up with Sayaka and some other friend of hers named Hitomi. It really is the weirdest feeling, having someone be so friendly to me even after I messed up my introduction.

* * *

Later that day, we had Physical Education, so we changed and went to the field to do some running exercises. However, I wasn’t able to do much. I got dizzy after doing just a few warm-ups. I was never good at sports, but it was never this bad…

While I was sitting on the bleachers, catching my breath, a group of girls approached me.

“Hey, look! It’s Miss I-Get-Tired-After-A-Few-Warm-Ups! I didn’t think it was possible to fail PE before I saw you!” said one of them.

“Well, she did get hospitalised for a few months before this,” added the second.

“Oh, right. Welp, guess it can’t be helped,” responded the first one.

“Yeah. It can’t be helped that she’ll be the first person to fail PE in the history of ever. What a loser!” commented the third and final one.

They all laughed as they went back to the field, leaving me as I lowered my head in humiliation. _Guess this would have happened sooner or later…_

I can’t stop thinking about that event from earlier as I make my way back home.

 _All I ever do is mess up and embarrass myself… I can’t stand it…_ I think as I go over the bridge leading towards the neighborhood I live in with Natsuki.

_“Then maybe it would be better if you just died, wouldn’t it?”_

_Maybe it would be better if I died…_

_“Yeah. You should just die.”_

_I should just…_ I quickly open my eyes again, in a panic about having realised both that those thoughts are definitely not mine, and that I closed my eyes without even realising.

However, I can’t panic about that for long, as I quickly notice that my surroundings have completely changed. The lighting is a strange orange tone, there are creepy drawings and patterns on the tiles on the floor, and I cannot see any buildings, but rather, mounds of more creepy tiles as far as I can see.

My breathing becomes agitated as I stop and look around myself, frozen with fear. I hear a rumbling behind me, and I turn to see a triumphal arch building itself using the same tiles, as well as some sort of orb with strange symbols on it, which places itself at the top, right on the center.

I stare at it wide-eyed, until some strange, blurry, orange humanoid figures appear below it and begin to clumsily advance towards me.

I scream, and turn to run for my life, but I’m stopped in my tracks again when I see a small group of really tall, skeletal men with some sort of mist covering their faces, wearing cloaks, approaching.

I scream again, and fall on my rear, terrified. I’m sure that these are the last moments of my life. I close my eyes and cover my head with my arms, pressing myself to the ground as I shakily await the end…

Then I hear a few impacts and blasts, but feel nothing other than wind.

After waiting a moment with nothing happening to me, I dare to raise my head again, and what I see completely halts any and all processes in my mind.

There stand three girls, and only one of them, the blue-haired one, seems to be normal. The other two are a blonde who looks slightly older, sporting a corset and boots, and wielding a rifle, and a pink-haired, small girl wearing a pink-and-yellow puffy dress, and wielding a bow. I have already met two of them, and the one I haven’t met, I also saw in my dream last night.

“It appears we made it just in time,” the blonde says. “Sayaka, stay with her.”

“Got it!” replies the girl, then goes to me and kneels to help me onto my feet. “You okay there, transfer student?”

“Seems like you found out our little secret, Homura,” Madoka says as she knocks an arrow made of pink light and aims at the orb at the top of the triumphal arch. “Keep it a secret from everyone at school, okay?” she says without a care as she lets her arrow fly.


	2. The Secret War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being attacked by a witch and saved by Madoka and Mami, Homura goes to the latter's apartment to learn about what happened, and about the secret war against the Incubators that's been going on for decades...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have realised in the previous chapter, this story will mirror the series to a degree. However, there are some key differences, a lot of which you'll learn about in this chapter. These differences will make the plot go in an entirely different direction, and in fact, I'm thinking the plot will extend beyond Walpurgisnacht's arrival in Mitakihara.
> 
> Also, this chapter turned a bit long... I tried to make it shorter, but it still ended up being pretty long. Hopefully, that's not that big an issue! This chapter was only long because it has tons of lore, so the next few chapters will probably be shorter.
> 
> Anyways, with that out of the way, please enjoy!

As I sit on a cushion on the floor, at the table, along with Madoka and Sayaka happily making some smalltalk while waiting for the blonde girl I met only just today to return with tea and snacks, I really cannot help but replay the absurd chain of events that led me here.

Madoka and the older girl with the rifles almost made those outrageous creatures that attacked me look weak. By the time I opened my eyes, all the strange skeletal men were gone, blasted into nothingness. There was only the triumphal arch, which disappeared after a couple more shots from both of them, bringing everyone out of the illusion that monster created. Sayaka cheered, and the two others were enveloped by light right before their outfits transformed into their school uniforms. After that, the blue-haired girl helped me up, asking once more if I was alright. I hesitantly answered, and noticed that Madoka and the blonde were gathering some small black objects from the ground around us and storing them.

Afterwards, the girls turned my way and smiled, then the blonde spoke. She introduced herself as Mami Tomoe and, with my permission, seemed to scan me with a tablet-like device. I couldn’t see the results, but all three girls looked impressed and excited. The blonde then offered to give me an explanation at her apartment over some tea and snacks, and I agreed. They didn’t really say anything to me directly as we made our way there, and I was too dazed to do anything but try and fail to make sense of these events.

I finally break out of my reverie when Mami returns to the table with a tray filled with pastries, a pot of steaming tea, and five cups. “Alright, I’ve called her. She should be here in a few minutes,” she announced.  _ Who did she call?  _ I wonder.

Madoka giggles excitedly in response. “Can’t wait to see Haruka again!” she exclaims in glee.

Mami serves us all our tea, then hands us our cups. “Careful, it’s hot,” she warns as I take mine.

I gently set the cup down in front of me, and finally decide to speak. “Um… You… You said y-you would… explain things…?”

The words stop her in her tracks as she raises her cup to her lips. “Yes, I did promise that…” she says as she brings her cup back down. “Excuse me, but I think I didn’t catch your name.”

“Ah… H-Homura Akemi…”

She nods. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Homura.” She looks at Madoka and they nod to each other, then both take off the rings they’re wearing and set them down on the table. A few moments later, the rings morph into the gemstones from before, making me gasp. Mami’s glows yellow, and Madoka’s pink.

“We can explain a few things right now, but the visitor who’s coming in a bit should explain everything else,” Mami says. “She can explain everything better than any of us can, after all.”

Madoka nods enthusiastically. “Leave it to a scientist to be good at explaining things!” she comments, then turns towards me. “Anyways, Homura, to start with, these are our Power Gems.” She gestures towards the glowing gemstones as she speaks.

“We obtained them when we made a contract with the Magical Girl Organization in exchange for a wish, and they allow us to become magical girls,” Mami explains, as if those words made any sort of sense.

“M-Magical Girls? Wish? Organization…? Wait…” I question, blinking a couple times, still majorly puzzled.

“Sounds like the plot of some anime, doesn’t it?” Sayaka comments, then laughs, causing Madoka to giggle nervously as she rubs the back of her neck, and Mami to sigh half-amused, half-exasperated. However, I can’t help but giggle a little, as that is exactly what I thought.

“This explanation probably doesn’t make much sense to you…” Mami admits, looking a bit frustrated at her inability to explain it all. “I apologise, I really haven’t had to explain this by myself much.”

“Right… Because this person called Haruka does it better?” I ask, having gathered this much from the bits of conversation between them.

She nods. “That’s right. Her name is Haruka Komori, and she works at the Organization as a researcher. She… doesn’t live with me, but she has been taking care of me for a while…” she explains, making me raise my eyebrows in surprise.  _ Did she lose her parents as well…? _

Just then, the bell rings.

“Huh, speak of the devil,” Sayaka says calmly before shovelling a piece of cake into her mouth, while Madoka bounces on her spot excitedly, grinning, and Mami stands up.

“Excuse me, I’ll go get the door,” she politely announces and leaves.

She returns just a few moments later accompanied by a woman seemingly close in age to Natsuki, with short auburn hair, wearing glasses and a clean, open lab coat over a dark blue blouse and a black pencil skirt. She’s carrying a suitcase on her right hand.

The moment Madoka sees her, she jumps to her feet and bolts to the poor woman, almost tackling her as she tightly wraps her arms around her. Haruka lets out a yelp, and almost drops the suitcase as she widens her stance to avoid getting bowled over, which makes Sayaka start laughing while Mami jumps back slightly. I raise my eyebrows in alarm.

“I’m so happy to see you, Haruka!” exclaims the girl.

“Madoka! The fact that you’re so small doesn’t mean you can’t knock me over!” the woman yells in exasperation, making Mami cover her mouth as she releases a small chuckle. Even I find the scene pretty amusing after realising that the scientist is alright.

The pink-haired girl separates herself from the woman, hands folded in front of herself as she looks down in shame, pouting a little. “I’m sorry… I’m just happy to see you…”

Haruka smiles in response, apparently having already forgiven the girl. “I know, and I appreciate it,” she says as she uses her free hand to ruffle Madoka’s hair a little, making her release a small giggle.

All three of them then come to the table, Haruka placing her suitcase on the floor beside her, and Mami pours her a cup of tea. “So, you’re the new girl? Homura, right?” she asks me after thanking the blonde.

“Ah, y-yes,” I say in response.

She chuckles a bit. “No need to be so nervous! We’re all friends here!” she says, then takes a sip from her cup. “So, have you guys already explained anything to her?”

“We… explained some things, but, uh…” Madoka began saying, nervously rubbing the back of her neck.

“They might as well have been telling her that up is down and that Japan is the biggest country in the world,” Sayaka finishes just before sipping her own tea, causing her pink-haired friend to lower her head in defeat.

Haruka chuckles, amused. “Leave it to Sayaka to put things eloquently,” she comments before she addresses me. “I heard that I’ve already been introduced. Feel free to call me Haruka. Formalities are not my thing, especially not with Mami’s friends,” she says.

I nod in response. “Nice to meet you.” I surprise myself by the lack of stuttering. “M-Madoka and Mami mentioned ‘magical girls’… Is that what they are?”

She nods in response. “Right. That’s why they were able to combat those monsters who attacked you. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. When it comes to explaining all of these crazy things we deal with, I’ve found it’s best to start at the beginning, back when the Magical Girl Phenomenon was brought to us humans. Believe it or not, it was brought to us in prehistoric times by, and I am not joking, an alien race calling themselves the Incubators,” she explained, making a pause to allow this to sink in.

“Aliens…?” I repeat, then place my hand on my chin. “Well, I guess that’s not too outrageous…”

Haruka chuckles in response, and all the other girls raise their eyebrows in surprise. “I agree! The ‘aliens’ part of this whole thing is probably the least crazy one,” she says, then brings a piece of cake to her mouth.

“But, if they really came here in prehistoric times, then… how have they managed to stay hidden for thousands of years?” I ask her. “Did they leave after bringing the… Magical Girl Phenomenon to us?”

She raises her eyebrows in response. “Hmm… You’re pretty smart,” she compliments, smirking, which causes me to blush a little. “We don’t know how they manage it, but they are pretty damn good at keeping themselves hidden. We don’t even know what their ships look like, despite the fact that we know they are still on Earth,” she says.

I widen my eyes in astonishment. “That’s… incredible.”

She nods. “Anyways, ever since then, Incubators started contacting young girls with great magic potential and offering them a single wish, which could really be anything the girl wanted, in exchange for a life of combat against the witches that threaten mankind.”

“That triumphal arch from earlier was a witch,” Mami chimes in. “They are normally invisible creatures that hide within illusory mazes of their own creation, and lure humans in only to bring as much despair out of them as they possibly can, which usually ends in death for the victims.”

I widen my eyes again, this time in shock. “D-death!?” I turn to Madoka. “And you battle these things every day? A-aren’t you scared?”

She places her hand on her chin and hums in thought. “Well… I guess I do get a little scared, actually,” she confesses, then lets out a small nervous laugh. “But, well… If we don’t fight them, no one else will, and when I think I might be able to save other people, just like we saved you earlier…” She smiles happily at me. “Well, I just can’t help but be happy.”

Her smile is just so kind, gentle and warm that I can’t help but feel a little fuzzy inside. I know I must be blushing, but her smile is so comforting, I cannot look away.  _ Did I even thank her for saving my life…? _

Haruka clears her throat to bring attention back to herself. “Yes, what Madoka is saying is true. Witches cannot be hurt by anything but magic,” she confirms. “Anyways, the Incubators explained that witches originated from ‘the curses that people bear against each other.’ In other words, negative emotions. You know, anger, fear, frustration, hate. However, this didn’t seem to add up, because there were other creatures that originated from these very negative emotions called nightmares, which, while dangerous, were a walk in the park when compared to any witch. While witches are able to kill tons of people, nightmares can kill maybe one person each, if any at all, and because many magical girls had seen nightmares being formed in the past, and left record of it, there was no questioning their origin.”

I hum in thought. “And I assume these nightmares are invisible as well, right?”

She nods in response. “Correct. Magical monsters are, as a general rule, invisible to anyone but magical girls and other magical monsters, unless the environment itself is magical, like within a witch’s maze. The only known exception to this is Walpurgisnacht, the most powerful of all witches, who doesn’t even require a maze in order to attack people.”

I frown in response. “Sh-she sounds dangerous…” I comment.

“Not to worry,” reassures the researcher. “She only rarely shows up, and moves in a very specific pattern. She has never shown up anywhere close to Mitakihara, and she probably won’t ever. Still, we try to keep an eye on her regardless.”

She continues her tale afterwards. “We don’t know if maybe some magical girls discovered this in the past and didn’t manage to let anyone else know about it, but, in the year of 1953, a certain group of magical girls from Germany began questioning things. There were just too many questions. What exactly are the Incubators? What are witches? What differentiates a witch from a nightmare, if they are formed in the same way? They began investigating, and eventually, found out the truth. The Incubators didn’t come here to grant us the power to fight against nightmares and witches. They found that, in order to allow for a normal girl to become a magical girl, the Incubators actually removed their souls and placed them in small containers called Soul Gems, like these.” She gestures towards the gemstones that Madoka and Mami held, still placed on the table. “Essentially turning the girl into a remote-controlled corpse in the process.”

I’m shocked by what I hear once more. “What!?” I turn to Madoka once again.

She smiles at me. “Don’t worry, Homura, our souls are still safely inside our bodies,” she says as she pats her chest. “I called these Power Gems, didn’t I? Soul Gems are a thing of the past.”

I feel immensely relieved by the information, and sigh.

Haruka nods. “That’s right. But it gets worse. Soul Gems had a tendency to get murkier over time, which signified the depletion of a girl’s magic. There were two ways to prevent this. One way was taking a Grief Seed, little black objects dropped by witches when they die, and placing it near the Soul Gem. This only works a couple times for each Grief Seed, though. The other way was simply standing close to a dying nightmare, which releases a magic mist that was absorbed by the Soul Gem. In other words, magical girls had to keep hunting witches and nightmares if they wanted to keep using their magic.”

“Well… What’s so bad about that? Other than the obvious, of course,” I ask her, getting confused.

She raises her finger as she sips from her cup. “I’m getting to that,” she indicates as she places her cup back down. “The thing with all that is that, curiously, the state of mind of a magical girl influenced how quickly her Soul Gem got murky. Happier girls didn’t need to replenish so often, while girls that fell into depression had to be constantly out hunting. It was also found that, if a Soul Gem lost all of its shine, it would shatter and become a Grief Seed, killing the girl and giving birth to a witch.”

I gasp and cover my mouth with my hand. “Th-that’s horrible!” I exclaim.

Everyone else in the room nods. “I agree,” replies Haruka. “Whenever the German girls found this out, the Incubators explained themselves. They said that, because of entropy, the universe was steadily losing energy, and was therefore, heading to its own demise. After they realised this, they began searching the universe for anything they could convert into energy so they could prolong the universe’s life. That’s when they found this little blue ball we call Earth, and us humans. You see, Incubators are an emotionless, hive-mind race. In the rare cases in which one of them develops emotions and separates itself from the hive-mind, it is immediately culled by its own kind. So, when they found us, and found that our main motivator is emotion, they found a way to turn those emotions into energy. The best way they could think of was to find young, teenage girls, fill them with hope by granting them a miracle, their wish, and promising them they can fight evil, only to then manipulate them into falling into despair, either by having their wish backfire, or showing them the cruel nature of the world they’re meant to be protecting, or really, anything, so that they become witches. When they become witches after this entire process, they release vast amounts of emotional energy, which the Incubators can collect. In fact, the most powerful the magical girl was, the more powerful the witch will be, and the more emotional energy is released.”

My eyes are wide in horror for about half of that explanation. When Haruka pauses, I lower my gaze and grasp the front of my shirt. “My goodness… They really are evil…” Everyone silently agrees, and I look at the researcher once more. “So… What happened afterwards?”

Haruka smirks. “Of course, the German girls thought this was a load of  _ scheisse,  _ as they would say, and decided to stick it to the man, or… creepy cat, in this case. They began trying to follow the Incubators back to their base, and map it out. They finally reached one of their outposts, and somehow managed to steal one of the devices used to turn normal girls into magical girls. They took it back and, deciding they needed help, they went to the research lab one of their parents worked at, and enlisted their help. They explained everything to them, and so, they got to work while the girls defended them from almost constant witch invasions, which were apparently following the commands of the Incubators, something they found out just then.” She scoffs. “Fucking aliens.”

As Sayaka chuckles and Madoka laughs nervously, Mami looks unamused. “Haruka, language.”

“Right, right,” she replies automatically, clearly not taking Mami’s words into consideration. “Eventually, the scientist managed to reverse engineer, reproduce and modify the device. After it became clear that too many humans knew about it and how to reproduce it, the Incubators laid off, and allowed the research to continue. It simply wasn’t worth it to them anymore. Eventually, this research team discovered the inherent magic power of the soul, which was what the machine used to grant the girl’s wishes. What puzzled them is the fact that it became easy to transform Soul Gems into Power Gems by keeping the soul inside the girl’s body, and simply having it feed magic into the gemstone by redirecting part of its output, which in turn, makes this magic a usable reservoir that also instinctively protects the girl in question by generating an invisible, magical barrier around her. In fact, while souls normally generate incredible amounts of magic, this is only true if they remain inside their respective bodies. If a soul is removed from its body, it starts consuming magic instead, and if it runs out of magic, it disappears shortly afterwards. They were puzzled because comparing emotional energy to magic energy is like comparing a battery to a nuclear power plant. There’s simply no comparison, which begs the question: Why would Incubators knowingly destroy a perfectly viable source of energy in exchange for a massively smaller one, when all they care about is collecting energy?”

I raise an eyebrow in response. “Did they actually know?” I ask.

Haruka raised her arms in exasperation at the evil aliens. “They must have. In order to make the technology required to create magical girls, they must have had a deep understanding of the soul. Hell, their device even used the soul’s inherent magic to grant the girl’s wish, and regardless, their scheme included the destruction of this power source. The scientists simply had no other choice but to conclude that the Incubators were lying about their purpose, which made them look even worse. After that, they teamed up with the German girls, and founded the Magical Girl Organization, with the objective of kicking the invaders off our planet. The Organization then proceeded to expand internationally, and eventually, almost all magical girls were created by us rather than the Incubators. Our objective is to scout girls with great magic potential, and use the new methods to turn those willing into magical girls so they can fight the Incubators on behalf of humanity, as well as save those few girls created using the old methods, and direct and assist the already existing girls however we can. We kept the whole thing with the wish being granted in exchange for that because of several reasons. We found that the older one gets, the more their magic potential diminishes, so we concluded that girls towards the end of the teen years are the most fit, because they simply have a thicker psychological armour than girls in their early teens, while still having great magic potential. But well, since you’re all young girls, we can’t really forcefully recruit you all and expect you to be fine with it, so we kept the incentive with the wish.”

I quickly raise my hands to stop Haruka again. “Wait, wait, wait!” I exclaim, slightly overwhelmed. “This is just too crazy! Why do current magical girls still need thick psychological armour? Why do witches still exist if very few magical girls nowadays were created by the Incubators? What were those skeletal men that attacked me along with the witch earlier?”

Everyone looks a bit stunned at my outburst. After a moment, Haruka pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and clears her throat. “Well, those questions are all actually very simple. The creation of a witch actually happens due to a quirk in the design of the gemstone rather than because of the soul. If a Soul Gem, or Power Gem, runs out of magic, it immediately turns into a Grief Seed. We haven’t been able to remove that from the current Power Gems because the gemstone is heavily unstable, and stabilising it simply requires magic, which it already takes from the soul as it is.”

I widen my eyes in horror yet again. “Then-!”

Haruka holds her hand up. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not actually that bad. Because the current Power Gems don’t hold a soul, their transformation into Grief Seeds doesn’t destroy the soul of the girl in question, meaning that the girl isn’t killed in the process of a new witch being born. They do lose their magic powers, and they also have a high possibility of facing other, dire consequences due to their soul’s magic power being violently moved elsewhere, such as being disabled, but the girl will definitely not die in the process. Not just that, but the transformation takes a while because the newly formed witch doesn’t have a soul to consume immediately. Also, Power Gems don’t use up magic over time like Soul Gems did, and in fact, they collect magic from the soul, meaning that they actually get shinier over time rather than murkier, so the only two ways for a Power Gem to lose all of its shine is for the girl to use up her entire magic reservoir in one go, or to fall into despair because that can destabilise a Power Gem. It’s usually a combination of both.” These words make me let out a sigh of relief. “Because of this, it’s important for magical girls to work together, and be there for each other both as battle support as well as emotional support. Since they so often cannot reveal many things to other people, other magical girls like them are often the only emotional support they can have.”

Mami smiles sadly as she seems to remember something, and Haruka pauses to look at her and smile warmly at her, like a mother would. After they share their moment, the researcher looks at me again. “Regardless of all that, witches are still about as common as they were back then, so we began looking into that and realised that the Incubators had begun creating witches, skipping the magical girl step entirely. Not only that, but they also created a new type of monster called wraiths, which don’t kill people, but they instead steal their emotions. We realised the Incubators’ new plan involved having witches attack humans, bringing them as much despair as they can, and then having the wraiths collect their despair as emotional energy, before the witch kills the victims because she simply cannot help herself.”

“You saw wraiths once already, Homura. Those skeletal men you mentioned? Those are them,” Mami explains.

I take a deep breath. After considering everything, despite how outrageous it sounds, it all seems to make sense. I have no more comments to make that wouldn’t sound repetitive, and no more questions other than one very important one.

“Why… are you telling me all this? You didn’t need to explain all of this just to make me understand, did you?” the question is directed at everyone, not just Haruka. Everyone smiles at me.

“Well, it’s true, we could have simply wiped your memory and be done with it,” Haruka says with a devious smirk.

“Wait, what!?” I utter, shocked.

She laughs in response. “But we chose not to because… Well, we’re scouting you.”

Madoka quickly leans over the table and takes my hands in hers, making me gasp and blush profusely. “You can become a magical girl, Homura! Isn’t that great? Now you can become as cool as your name!”


	3. The Offer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Homura is scouted by the Magical Girl Organisation, and the offer of becoming a magical girl is explained to her. Afterwards, she makes her way home accompanied by Madoka, and the two bond on the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First chapter that's mostly original events. Figured I'd put some emphasys on Homura and Madoka bonding, since... Well, you know what happens after that. XD Anyways, on with the chapter!

After Mami, Sayaka and Haruka managed to calm Madoka down and get her off of me, the researcher proceeded to explain the offer to me. She said that, when Mami scanned me with her strange device, they could tell I have great magic potential, and decided to scout me. She opened her suitcase and produced a device much like the one Mami had used on me earlier, sliding it over the table to me. She called it a Magical Girl Utility Device, or MaGiUD for short. She explained that the device is mine unless I decide to give it back, and that I have a few options now. If I ever decide to accept the offer and become a magical girl, I simply have to place my palm on the screen, close my eyes, and speak my wish. She also explained that the device could be used for other purposes, such as contacting the closest Organisation offices, and other members whose IDs I decide to add.

They make a small interlude in the proposal to explain that magical girls can communicate telepathically to others, which Madoka proves by saying hi within my head. I’m startled so much, I jump to my feet, which causes Madoka to smile apologetically, Mami to smile in mild amusement, and Sayaka and Haruka to laugh, making me blush once more. Once I’m sitting back down, they explain this telepathy only works within a short range, and that the device is useful for longer range communications, like a phone.

Haruka resumes the explanation of the device, saying it can scan the magic potential of other girls, but it requires the girl in question to stand still, facing the MaGiUD for a few seconds, meaning that it’s difficult to scan a girl without her consent. Another function is to track other devices like itself, belonging to other members, as well as their Power Gems. Haruka explains that both of them getting separated usually means trouble, since a girl cannot continue to use her magic if the Power Gem is not within ten metres of her, and that, if they don’t have their device, they can’t contact the other girls in their squad. The final functions are an automatic alarm, letting the user know about any magical monster activity within a one-hundred-metre radius, and a database of the Organisation’s history and their findings on various subjects related to their objectives.

When I asked why Sayaka was with us when I didn’t see her transform earlier, she explained she had been scouted a week ago already, along with Madoka, showing me her own MaGiUD, but is still considering whether she wants to become a magical girl or not. That’s when Haruka explained that making a contract and becoming a magical girl is strictly voluntary and that no member is allowed to push me in either direction unless I ask for advice. In fact, she told me I am encouraged to take as long as I need to make this choice. She explained that if I decide to make a contract, I already have a perfectly good squad to join, being the one formed by Mami and Madoka, and that if I decide not to do it, there are other ways I can help out from the sidelines, such as keeping tabs on the squad’s wellbeing by keeping an eye on the tracking function of the MaGiUD and letting everyone in the squad know whenever something doesn’t look right, as well as providing emotional support and helping with any potential victims to magical monster attacks. I could also scout around, looking for girls with great magic potential, as well as alerting existing squads of magical monster attacks. I can also be trained by the researchers, if I am so inclined, and later be hired by the Organization as a researcher myself once I graduate. Finally, scouted girls who don’t want to become magical girls can become sponsors of the Organisation, if they can afford it themselves or somehow convince their parents to pay for it. Mami clarified that this possibility is mostly taken by the older scouted girls, and usually not immediately. Haruka also added that, while the Organisation is government-funded, since it is a secret organisation, even the richest governments can’t give them a huge budget, because then the citizens would start asking where their taxes are going, so sponsors are a big help. It made me wonder why secrecy is important, and Haruka explained that most people wouldn’t believe the Organisation at best, and at worst, there would be generalised panic, which is something they want to avoid.

After all the explanations were done, everyone added my MaGiUD ID to their own devices, and added theirs. then the group fell into casual conversation, as if everything that we had just got done talking about was as normal as asking how our day at school had gone. The tea and pastries eventually ran out, and after looking at the time, Haruka excused herself and said she had to go back to her office. Before leaving, she suggested we all went back home, then embraced Mami and Madoka and, finally, left.

Next to leave were Sayaka, Madoka and myself. Despite them being close friends, the blue-haired girl explained that the pink-haired girl and her don’t live close to each other, so she had to take a different route home. Surprisingly enough, when Madoka asked where I live, and I answered, her face lit up with a huge grin.

“Hey, it’s close to where I live! Let’s walk home together!” she proposed.

Shortly after we begin our walk back, though, my phone rings. I wonder who it could be, but when I look at the caller ID and notice it’s Natsuki, I feel stupid, not only for not seeing this coming, but also for not letting her know in advance I was going to be late.

“Oh, shoot…” I mutter, my eyes wide in a panic as I stop walking.

“Hm?” Madoka stops walking as well, and looks over my shoulder at the screen. “Natsuki Aonuma… Who’s that?”

I put my hand to my forehead. “M-my caretaker…” I answer, my voice raspy with frustration and panic. “Wh-what do I do? I forgot to let her know I wasn’t gonna be home for dinner…”

Madoka smiles as if nothing happened. “Well, pick it up before she worries even more!” she suggests. “Also, put her on speaker.”

“Wh-what!?” My eyes dart from the phone to the girl and back. I let out an exasperated groan and pick up the call, deciding I had no better plan.

“Homura, where in the world are you!?” Natsuki questions roughly as soon as I pick up, making us flinch. She has never used that tone with me, but I guess it’s because I have never really misbehaved much.

“N-Natsuki, I…” I begin saying, and only panic further as I have no idea what to say.

“Hello, Missus Aouma!” Madoka suddenly greets, making the colour drain from my face.

The line is silent for a moment, and then Natsuki speaks again. “Wh-who’s that?”

“Just a… a girl from school…” I say. It’s easy, since it isn’t a lie.

“Yeah, Homura has been hanging out with me and a couple other girls from school today!” Madoka explains, technically isn’t a lie, either.

“Is… Is this true?” the woman asks.

“Yes… We… talked a little in school, and it just… It just went from there…” I say, trying to be as vague as possible while also giving an explanation that is at least somewhat satisfying.

“Yeah, Homura’s really fun to be around!” Madoka cheers. I look at her with wide eyes, flabbergasted.  _ Does she really think that…? _

I hear sighing from the other end of the line. “You should have told me, Homura! And here I was worrying over nothing!” she chastises, though she sounds a lot more calm.

“Uh… Y-yeah… Sorry about that, I forgot…”

She sighs once more. “Well, it’s fine. Will you be coming home soon? What about dinner? Did you eat already?”

Madoka is the one who answers. “Don’t worry, Missus Aonuma, we’re on our way back already. I decided to accompany Homura home since I live nearby,” she explains.

“Yeah, and we did eat already,” I add.

The line is silent once more. “Fine, I guess I can just save the food I made for another time…” Natsuki responds, and makes a short pause. “I’m glad you’re making friends this quickly, Homura. See you soon,” she says warmly.

I’m stopped short for a moment, processing her words.  _ Friends? Is this what friends are…?  _ “Y-yeah… See you.” I hang up and let out a relieved sigh. “Thanks for the save…” I tell Madoka as I put my phone away once more.

She smiles in response. “Don’t worry. That’s what friends are for, right?” Though she ends the phrase as a question, it sounds more like a statement, if albeit a particularly happy one.

“F-friends…” I repeat, starting to walk again.

“That’s what we are, right?” she asks, walking alongside me.

I take a moment to consider this question for a while, then speak. “I’m… I’m not sure…” is all I can answer.

The pink-haired girl next to me only giggles in response. “Well, you don’t need to torment yourself over it. If you enjoy our company and we enjoy yours, then I’d say that counts.”

I only respond with what I intend to be a thoughtful hum, but comes out as a tiny grunt instead.

After a while, the girl speaks once more. “You know… I have a little… confession to make,” she says, looking a bit nervous as she wrings her hands in front of herself, her eyes wandering all over the place.

“Wh-what is it?” I ask, curious about what this girl could possibly want to tell me in confidence.

“You see, I… I kinda sorta had a dream last night, and, well… You were in it…” she says, rubbing the back of her neck as she lets out an awkward chuckle.

I stop walking again, shocked. “Wait, what!?” I ask incredulously, my eyes wide as I face the girl.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s weird, but-”

“No, no, wait. I, uh…” I begin saying, then my cheeks start to burn as I avert my gaze awkwardly. “I… I also had a dream like that… and I guess we were all magical girls, now that I think about it” I confess.

She looks surprised for a moment, her eyes wide and her jaw hanging open, then she grins again. “So that’s why you stared at me when you entered the classroom today! You couldn’t believe you were seeing someone from your dream, right?”

I nod in response. “It… It was quite shocking.” We begin walking once more.

“Yeah, I can imagine,” she says, and giggles. “It’s not actually the first time I get a dream like that. You see, people with great magic potential sometimes have prophetic dreams shortly before important moments in their lives,” she explains.

The information is shocking, but explains a lot. “Huh…”

“Well, I talked about this dream with Mami and Sayaka, and later, when I saw you, I was excited! I mean, I met one of the two unknown girls in my dream! I just knew you would have great magic potential, and they both agreed.”

“Wait… You said ‘two unknown girls’… Was the other one wearing a red dress and wielding a spear?” I ask tentatively.

This time, she’s the one to stop. “Whoa, whoa, whoa… Don’t tell me we had the exact same dream, now,” she says, looking somewhat shocked herself as she looks at me.

I stop as well, raising my eyebrows. “Would that… be a bad thing?”

“No, no!” she quickly answers, raising her hands to indicate she didn’t mean anything bad with her previous words. She places one of her hands on her cheek and continues. “It’s just… really weird, and I dunno what it could possibly mean,” she says, putting her hand back down. “I’m still wondering why it is that I got that dream when the one that got scouted was you, actually. The fact that we both had the exact same dream only makes this more confusing…”

I lower my gaze and think about this for a moment. The only conclusion I’m able to make is that Madoka and I are somehow bound by fate…  _ But that’s too embarrassing!  _ Even though I don’t say anything, I can tell I start blushing. When I look toward her again, she’s blushing slightly, too, which only embarrasses me further.  _ She must be thinking the same thing… _

“S-so, um… D-describe whatever you remember about your dream, to see if they really were exactly the same!” the girl blurts out, trying to escape the previous awkward silence.

I comply, eager to do the same. “W-well, There were five of us together. Mami, Sayaka, the girl in red, you and I were all there, and we were all magical girls.”

Madoka nods. “Right. Sayaka was already scouted, so her becoming a magical girl in the near future makes sense. Though when I told her she was one in my dream, she only got nervous and avoided the subject,” she says, then giggles fondly. “As for the girl in red, I don’t know her, but Mami does. She’s a magical girl already, and she’s from the neighboring town of Kazamino. Her name is Kyouko Sakura. Sadly, she also told us they’re not friends because… Well, she kinda went rogue.” She looks disappointed and a little sad as she says this.

I frown, puzzled. “What does that mean?”

“It means she’s decided to fight for her own sake, away from the Organisation. She’s been alone for a while, and the Organisation has been trying to track her down, as girls like that can be dangerous because they often cause trouble for other girls. She’s good at eluding them, though.”

“Why… would she do that?”

She sighs. “I don’t know the details, but apparently, she lost her faith in the Organisation when her wish backfired. I don’t know what her wish was, or how it went wrong, but considering that her family went missing and that she stopped showing up to her previous house and school around the same time… I can’t help but imagine the worst…”

I look downwards, frowning, as I take her words in. “What… will the Organisation do to her if they catch her?”

Madoka is silent for a moment. “Revoke her Power Gem and MaGiUD, along with all her magical powers.”

I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “They can do that?”

She nods. “Yeah. Whenever a girl decides she doesn’t want to be a magical girl anymore, she can have her powers removed, though it is permanent after that, because apparently, messing too much with the magic flow of the soul is dangerous, or something,” she says, then chuckles, rubbing the back of her head. “Sorry, I don’t fully understand why it’s dangerous, but I trust Haruka.” She pauses and lowers her arm again. “But, if a girl goes rogue like she did, they usually prefer to forcibly remove her powers before she can cause too much damage, but they actually have to catch the girl before they can do that.”

I hum in response. “Does that happen often? A girl going rogue, I mean.”

“Not often, but it does happen sometimes,” she responds, then looks at me with a smile, apparently done with that line of thought. “So, anything else you remember?”

I place my hand on my chin and hum in thought. “Well, we were all fighting as a team, against… something, I can’t quite remember what,” I say, placing my hand on top of my head as I try to remember what it was. “Also, we both used bows as a weapon.”

“I remember that! I was so excited when I realised a potential magical girl would use a bow as her weapon, like myself!” she replies with a big grin.

“Would the dream be accurate in showing which weapon I would use as a magical girl?” I ask her.

“They usually are, but prophetic dreams don’t always show you things in the most literal way possible, so who knows, really. More often than not, they’re metaphorical, which makes them particularly frustrating,” she says, then snickers to herself. “It would be really cool if all five of us could team up, but considering Kyouko’s situation…” She trails off, looking sad once more.

I frown. “I… haven’t decided anything yet.”

Madoka visibly panics, waving her arms in front of herself to try and fix her blunder. “No, no! That’s not what I meant!” she puts her arms back down. “Of course, you’re free to choose what you wanna do, and I have no intention to force you to become a magical girl!” I cover my mouth with my hand and chuckle a little at her expense, which makes her pout. “Hey, that was mean!” she chastises, then lightly, playfully slaps my shoulder. “Unexpectedly so! Is Sayaka starting to rub off on you this quickly?” she asks in mock-indignation, then laughs along with me.

I open my eyes to look at her, and take in the happy expression she shows when laughing.  _ She really is charming.  _ I think, and I’m reminded of my thoughts about thanking her for saving my life.

“Well, seems like this is where we part ways,” she says, and I look around to confirm she isn’t wrong. “Your house is just around the corner over there, right?”

I nod, and she turns to leave, but I stop her. “Uh… M-Madoka?”

She turns again, her eyebrows raised. “Hm?”

I shift my weight from one foot to the other, looking down as I wring my hands in front of me. “Th-thank you…” I manage, then look back up to face her. “For saving my life.”

She smiles warmly in response. “Oh, no need to thank me for that!” she says. “I’m… proud I managed to do that,” she says, looking genuinely happy. After a moment of silently looking into each other’s eyes, she raises her hand and waves. “See you at school tomorrow!” After that, she runs off, and I stand there, watching as her figure becomes smaller and smaller.

I turn around and head home. As soon as I enter the house, Natsuki wraps me up in a tight embrace. Before she lets me go to my room, she urges me to tell her about my newest friends, and I find myself happily talking about all three of them, especially about Madoka, and how friendly and charming she is. Before I retire to my room, I tell her I might just start hanging out with them often from now on, and she smiles happily.

“I’m glad for you,” she says, then we say goodnight to each other and head to our respective rooms.

_ Friends… I guess that’s what they are, _ I think with a smile as I lay in bed, right before falling asleep.


	4. The Life of a Magical Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls defend Homura from bullies, then they hang out at lunch. Afterwards, they go hunting for magical monsters...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I'm really struggling to get the new chapters out on time this week. Uni went crazy, and I'm here really wishing for this to end... This is also why I have been absent from Twitter.
> 
> Ayways, enough about that. Let's get on with the story!

The next day at school, as I walk down the hallway towards a secluded place to eat my lunch in, I’m suddenly surrounded by the three girls that came to bother me yesterday during physical education.

“Hey, look! It’s the PE failure herself!”

“Not just PE failure. Did you see how she just couldn’t solve a simple math problem on the whiteboard earlier?”

“It’s not that she couldn’t solve it. She couldn’t even begin!”

They laugh afterwards, but I continue walking. They notice, though, and block my path forward by standing in front of me.

“Hey! It’s rude to ignore others, you know!”

I gulp in response, then try speaking, though my voice is quiet. “E-excuse me, please… I… I n-need to get somewhere…”

They laugh at me again. “It’s not like you have anyone to eat your lunch with, do you? You’re such a loser, I doubt anyone would wanna be your friend!” says one of them.

“I wonder, just how blind are you?” another says, and she grabs my glasses off my face.

I gasp and quickly reach for them, but the girl holding them pulls them out of my reach. “My glasses! G-give them back!” I plead, squinting due to my severe myopia.

She puts them on, and staggers back a little. “Wah! This is ridiculous! She can’t see shit!” she exclaims, then laughs.

“Really? Let me see!” says the one beside her, grabbing the glasses and putting them on herself. “Whoa, you’re right!”

I keep trying to grab my glasses with my free hand, but they quickly step out of the way whenever I try. It’s easy for them, even, because I can’t see well, so my attempts end up far off their mark more often than not.

Just when the third is about to grab my glasses and try them on herself, someone else intervenes.

“Just what is going on here?” says Mami’s voice.

I turn and see all three girls from yesterday, plus the one that was with Sayaka when Madoka talked to me in the classroom before leading me to the infirmary. All four of them are frowning, angry, especially Madoka, who looks like she might burst a vein on her forehead if she’s not careful, despite the fact that she looked like the happiest and most innocent girl on the planet yesterday.

She steps in front of everyone and extends her arm to receive something. “Give the glasses back. Now,” she instructs in a firm tone I wouldn’t have ever imagined her using.

“B-butt out, Kaname! This has nothing to do with you!” says the girl who’s holding my glasses, moving them out of her reach. All three of them look slightly nervous, though.

“Holy shit, would you three stop being such idiots?” Sayaka retorts. “Look at her! She’s clearly not enjoying this, and I think you know it. Cruelty isn’t cute or cool!”

“Will you three give them back? Or will I have to find a teacher?” says the fourth girl, whose name I don’t know.

“You go do that. We’ll wait here, even if they decide to flee,” says Mami, then Hitomi nods and walks away.

“Hah! We’ll be gone by the time the teachers get here!”

Sayaka scoffs cockily. “I wouldn’t be so sure. We have our ways…” she says cryptically, giving a cocky grin.

“I won’t say this again,” Madoka warns. “If you give the glasses back and walk away, we will overlook this, but if you don’t…”

Then something very strange happens. The three girls suddenly jump in fear, away from Madoka, before the one with the glasses quickly deposits them on her hand. “We’re sorry! We’re sorry! We won’t do it again!” they yell in fear as they alternate between moving away and bowing repeatedly. Again, very suddenly, they jump in fear once more, and run away, not saying anything else other than screaming.

Madoka then sighs before she turns to me and smiles as if nothing happened. “Here you go, Homura,” she says, reaching forward and sliding my glasses into place, which makes me tense up and blush. “There. Those glasses really do suit you. You look cute in them!” she says with her bright smile.

I don’t know how to react to that, so I simply gape at her for a moment before I shake my head. “Wh-what happened? Why did they run away suddenly? What scared them so bad?”

“Oh.” The pink-haired girl chuckles nervously as she rubs the back of her neck. “I kinda… used my telepathy to scare them off.”

“What!?”

Mami the chuckles a little herself. “I helped this time. It was a little exhilarating, to be honest.”

“Man, I wish I could do that…” Sayaka laments.

“Then become a magical girl, already!” Madoka exclaims.

Her blue-haired friend smirks and raises an eyebrow. “Madoka? What about the rules?”

“Eh? No, wait!”

Sayaka laughs after she sees her friend’s reaction, and so Madoka pouts before lightly punching the blue-haired girl’s shoulder. “Meanie.”

“Wait, hold on!” I suddenly utter, having found the previous explanation unsatisfactory. “Are you even allowed to use your telepathy for that? And what do you mean, ‘this time,’ Tomoe?”

Sayaka raises her hands after my outburst. “Whoa, calm down, Homura, it’s not that big a deal.”

“Why not!? Aren’t you all supposed to keep your abilities secret? Aren’t they going to find out about magical girls now?”

“No, they won’t,” Mami says confidently.

“Homura, don’t worry, we know all that,” Madoka says, then takes my free hand in both of hers to reassure me, which only makes me blush again. “We decided to do this much because, if three girls that are known for being delinquents tell everyone else that Mami and I are telepaths, nobody’s gonna believe them. Besides, we haven’t explained them anything, so all they know is that Mami and I can talk to them in their minds. They can draw whatever crazy conclusions they want.”

I sigh after hearing this. It does make sense, so I’m considerably less worried. “Just… Why, though?” I ask her.

She closes her eyes, and looks slightly angry. “I just can’t stand it when people hurt others for their own amusement.” She opens her eyes again, and looks slightly sad. “We should all talk and get along, not hurt each other for petty reasons…” She then looks at me, smiling again. “And this power I was given is meant to be used for protecting others. Not just against magical monsters, if I can help it.”

“Also, this happened once before already,” Sayaka adds. “Which is why Mami said ‘this time,’ she didn’t help the previous time.”

Madoka nods, and lets go of my hands. “Those three girls had a bit of reign of terror on most others in class. After I became a magical girl, I used my powers to stop them, but I guess they couldn’t help themselves after you transferred in…”

I keep looking into Madoka’s eyes, even after she has stepped away from me.  _ She really is too sweet… _

“Well, I suppose we have to wait for Hitomi now,” Mami comments. “She’ll probably be here soon.”

“Oh, right,” I begin. “Why did you three let her run off?”

“She doesn’t know anything,” Madoka answers. “We tested her once already. Her magic potential is just not that big, so we ended up having to wipe her memory after she got attacked by a Nightmare a couple days ago.”

“H-how much did she forget…?” I ask her.

“Oh, don’t worry, just the attack itself. We wouldn’t go around giving people amnesia.”

I sigh, relieved. A few more meaningless words are exchanged before Hitomi arrives with Miss Saotome in tow, but then the three others explain that the bullies decided to run off. After saying she would give them another stern talking to, the teacher leaves, and Hitomi lets out a relieved sigh.

“Homura, would you like to have lunch with us on the rooftop?” Madoka offers afterward.

“Eh? Ah, sure…”

All four of them smile at me, then we head to the rooftop. We eat our lunches while talking about unimportant things. While the topics of conversation aren’t really meaningful at all, it’s fun to talk to them a bit, and even share some careless laughs.

* * *

Once school is over, I head to my locker and pick my belongings up. Before I go out, though, the three girls from the Organisation show up again. For some reason, Sayaka has a bat sticking out of her bag.  _ Is she in the baseball club? _

“Hey, Homura!” greets Madoka.

“Yo,” says Sayaka right after.

“Uh… Hey,” I answer them shyly, a tiny smile on my face.

“We’ll be going home together again today. Want to come with us?” asks Mami.

_ “By that she means that we’re going hunting,”  _ Madoka explains telepathically. There are other students around us, so I understand why they wouldn’t speak about such things out loud.

I widen my eyes, caught off-guard by their offer. “Um…” I’m not sure how I can answer them without speaking.

_ “You can respond telepathically to either Mami or myself,”  _ Madoka informs me, sensing that I had to say something that had to be kept secret.  _ “Only one of us has to be a magical girl for it to work both ways. You simply need to picture your thoughts going to me.” _

I sigh, then give my reply.  _ “Wouldn’t I just get in the way if I accompanied you while you’re hunting?” _

_ “Not at all! Sayaka helps a lot when she’s around, and having one more head as well as another pair of eyes will be useful!” _

I direct my gaze towards the floor as I think about it.  _ “Well, I’m not sure if I’ll be too useful, but I am curious…”  _ I raise my head again. “S-sure, I’ll go with you.”

All three of them smile. “Great!” Madoka exclaims, and we set out of school.

Once we are a few ways away from the school, all three of them pull out their MaGiUDs and turn them on, despite the fact that there are people around.

_ “Shouldn’t we keep those hidden from others?”  _ I ask Madoka telepathically.

She smiles at me.  _ “They look like smartphones to anyone passing by, so we don’t really have to.” _

I nod, then pull out mine and turn it on.  _ “We’re using the tracking function to locate magical monsters, right?” _

_ “Yes!” _

I start the tracking function, and it shows me a map of the area within about a hundred metres from me. The other girls are represented on the map by small, green dots, which I can tap to see who they are. If any magical monsters show up, they’d be represented by orange dots for Nightmares, red dots for Wraiths, and black dots for Witches, with smaller black exes for their familiars and black, empty circles for Barriers, and yellow dots for people with a Witch’s Kiss, but none of those appear.

We walk through the streets for a while, and when we reach somewhere without other people, Mami takes the opportunity to explain that Power Gems can be used to track magic monsters as well, as they react to the trail of magical energy they leave behind, but they can only be used within a relatively short range if you have a trail to follow, so they’re usually better for figuring out a more precise location, whereas the MaGiUD is better for general locations.

The three of them keep the conversation going while they patrol the streets, too. It’s like they’re used to this.

“By the way, Sayaka, I finally watched that anime you recommended to me,” Madoka comments.

“Uh, which one? I think I recommended like, at least three different ones just this week,” the blue-haired girl responds, then laughs like she knows how ridiculous that is. “You’re gonna have to be more specific than that.”

“The one about the girls going to a magic school!” the pink-haired girl specified.

“Oh, that one! What’d you think?”

“It was pretty funny, but also really cute, I think!”

“A magic school? Was it anything like reality at all?” Mami asked, intrigued.

“Oh, no, of course not!” Sayaka answers. “These girls are training to be witches, and the witches in that show aren’t monsters, they’re just girls and women that use magic.”

“Kind of an interesting view on it, honestly. I kinda wish the world could be more like that…” Madoka comments.

Mami gives a thoughtful hum in response. “People really do come up with the strangest things sometimes…”

“I… I think I watched that one…” I chime in, wanting to be a part of the conversation.

“Oh, really?” Sayaka asks.

“Yeah, I, uh… I watched a lot of anime when I was hospitalised…” I answer. “I also played video games and read books and manga a lot…”

“Ah, right. You probably didn’t have anything else to do,” the blue-haired girl comments.

“What was it like, being hospitalised?” Madoka asks me.

“It was… a bit unnerving at first,” I answer. “I got used to it eventually, though, so it simply became somewhat boring sometimes. It… It was mostly lonely, but thankfully, Natsuki was there all through it.”

“Who’s Natsuki?” asks Mami.

“My… My caretaker. She’s a nurse who works at the hospital I was in, and has been taking care of me ever since my parents… died.”

“Uh…” Sayaka looks slightly uncomfortable. “Are you… alright?”

“Y-yeah, my parents have been dead for… almost half my life, and… having Natsuki there for me has helped a lot.”

Mami sighs in response. “Unbelievable that we’d both have such similar stories,” she comments. “My parents… They passed away about a year ago, when I became a magical girl… Since there were no other scouted girls in Mitakihara at the time, the Organisation dispatched Haruka to be my caretaker, and…” She sighs. “She has helped quite a bit. I don’t know what I would have done if she wasn’t around.”

We fall silent for a moment, not exactly sure of what else to say, when an alert sounds on all our MaGiUDs, one after the other. I look down to see a yellow dot moving slowly at the edge of the screen, accompanied by a black dot. My eyes widen as I see this.

“Guys! They’re heading towards the abandoned hospital!” Sayaka informs us. “This way!” Then we all break into a run.

About a minute later, though, I start slowing down, completely winded. “I can’t… keep up!” I tell them, stopping and doubling over, trying to catch my breath. My weak heart is pounding way too fast in my chest, and it’s pretty uncomfortable.

All three of them stop and look at me, worried. Madoka puts her MaGiUD away, approaches me and turns to them. “I’ll do something, you two go on ahead!” she tells them, and they nod, then continue running.

She leans over me and places a hand on my shoulder. “Your heart?” she asks, worried.

I can’t manage to say anything, so I simply nod.

She lets out a grunt, and as I watch her, I can tell she’s racking her brain for a solution. She then looks to either side of her, presumably checking for bystanders, before she raises her ringed hand, palm up. The ring transforms into her Power Gem, which she then squeezes within her palm. She’s enveloped in pink light, and when it dispels, she’s in her magical girl outfit once more.

She comes closer, and wraps one arm around my shoulders and the other one behind my knees. “Hold on, I’m gonna jump!”

“Eh!?” I utter as she lifts me up with so much ease, it’s a bit scary. She feels unexpectedly strong, given her small body, though it must be because of her magic powers. Being in this position makes me blush like a tomato, though, but I’m still conscious enough to put my own MaGiUd away and wrap my arms around her shoulders, as instructed.

Shortly afterwards, she bends her knees, about to take a powerful leap. When she does, she jumps so high, she could easily clear a mansion, landing on the other side.

I scream in fear as I see the ground speeding away from us, then squeeze my eyes shut and press my face against her chest, tensing up. I’m so afraid, I can’t look.

We land with a thud, and she bends her knees as we do. She doesn’t stop, and starts running immediately. I look again, and see that we’re on top of a short building. “We’ll get there soon enough, don’t worry!” she informs me, sensing my fear. “I won’t let you go!”

When she reaches the edge of the rooftop, she jumps again. This time, I’m more prepared, and don’t scream despite being scared. My hold on Madoka is so tight, though, I’m sure I would be hurting her if she wasn’t morphed.

After a few more leaps, we finally make it to the abandoned hospital, and the magical girl puts me down on my feet. There’s a woman lying down on the pavement by the entrance, not moving. I widen my eyes as I see it, thinking the worst.

Madoka walks over and places her fingers on her neck, then breathes a sigh of relief. “Don’t worry, she’s alive, just unconscious,” she informs. “She does have a Witch’s Kiss, though, so we should look for that Witch and defeat it before she wakes up.”

I’m relieved to hear the woman is alright, and I nod after she tells me her plan. We go inside the hospital and quickly see the portal leading into the Barrier that Mami presumably opened earlier.

Madoka stands before it, then extends her arm to the side. Her bow appears on it, and she pulls the string, making an arrow made of pink light appear on it, ready to be fired at a moment’s notice.

“Stay close to me, alright?” she instructs with a smile.

I nod, then we both jump through the portal.

We move through a brown hallway with strange lighting, which then opens up into a huge cylindrical room with a seemingly never-ending spiral staircase going along its edge. Everything seems to be moving, and at the same time, not at all. There are unbelievably long ribbons waving in the nonexistent breeze, going from the bottom of the room to the top, and numerous bridges with no railing connect various sections of the room.

Madoka and I are on one bridge, and when we come out, we look around for Mami and Sayaka. We don’t see them immediately, but we see this Witch’s familiars, which look like giant balls of cotton with moustaches and tiny, black extremities. There are loads of them everywhere, and a good number sees us and produces a weird, laugh-like, high-pitched sound before charging at us.

I grit my teeth and take a step back, but Madoka steps between me and the familiars and fires her bow, hitting several of them with just one arrow, which makes them break apart and disappear. “I’ll protect you, Homura, don’t worry about a thing!” she reassures. “Try to keep an eye out for Sayaka and Mami!”

As she continues to shoot at the speeding familiars, I nod, though she can’t see me, and begin looking round at the other bridges. It isn’t long before I spot them on a bridge to our right, a couple metres below us. Mami’s shooting at the familiars on one side, while Sayaka knocks the ones that get too close on the other side back with something that looks like a magic bat.

“Get outta here!” she yells as she hits a couple of them off the bridge.

“They’re down there!” I tell Madoka, placing a hand on her shoulder while I point downward with the other. She looks down at them for a moment, then fires another arrow at the incoming familiars. “Hold tight!” she says, wrapping her arm around my waist. As she swats a familiar that dared to get too close with her bow, I can already tell she’s planning on jumping down, so I quickly wrap my arms around her neck.

Right afterwards, she hops down, and we land on the bridge Mami and Sayaka are on. I lose my balance slightly, but manage to regain it quickly enough. “Guys!” Madoka exclaims as she shoots past me towards a group of familiars approaching from that side, then she runs towards the other two, with me trailing behind.

“Madoka! Geez, you slowpoke!” responds Sayaka, putting her bat down. “We got the party started without you!”

“I came here as fast as I could!” she defends herself as she positions herself so Sayaka and I are between her and Mami, then shoots towards the familiars on her side.

“No fighting, girls,” Mami chides as she continues to shoot. “We need to advance towards that hallway in front of me. The witch is in that direction.” She throws her rifle away, then produces another one out of thin air and continues to shoot.

Madoka nods. “Understood!”

We slowly advance towards the hallway Mami indicated, with the blonde taking care of the enemies in front of us while Madoka guards our rear, and Sayaka even helps a little every time a straggler gets past either of them, using her weird bat. I can’t do anything but watch.

However, it proves to be useful. After a while, I notice a familiar trying to jump at us from the bridge Madoka and I jumped from.

“Above!” I yell, and Madoka quickly points upward and impales the sneaky familiar with an arrow.

“Thanks!” she says, and continues to fight the enemies in front of her.

We progress a bit more and, finally, we enter the hallway. Mami finishes off the enemies already inside, then throws her rifle away and quickly switches position to our back. She extends her hands and summons a wall of golden ribbons, blocking the entrance to the hallway, then Madoka quickly dispatches the two that managed to get past it by smacking them forcefully with her bow, one after the other.

“That’ll hold them,” the blonde comments, then turns to us. “The Witch is close, let’s get going!”

We then start down the hallway and, quickly enough, find another big chamber in which the Witch rests atop a twisted divan. The monster looks like a pear with a crooked top, part of its body brown and the others green, skinny black legs, and flowers growing from different parts of its body, a bigger one representing its face. It looks grotesque, so I grimace as I see it. I notice there are a bunch of Wraiths standing guard at either side of the Witch, too.

The two magical girls stare it down, then turn towards us. “You two stay up here,” Mami instructs us. “We’ll be back shortly.”

“Everything’ll be alright!” Madoka reassures us with a smile, then they both jump down into the fray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think part of the reason why I ended the chapter here was so that it could be done by today... But anyways, I don't really think it's a bad place to end, either, so it shouldn't really matter much. Let's hope I can get the next chapter done with more time to spare!


	5. Selflessness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Madoka and Mami fight against Gertrud, and there, Homura learns why becoming a magical girl is such a difficult choice. A few days later, things go awry after a visit to the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM BACK!!! :D
> 
> Honestly, sorry this chapter is going up so late. I went into hiatus because of uni, and then I kinda took forever with this one chapter, and I just now finished it. Not sure why that happened, but oh well.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy the chapter!

As soon as Madoka and Mami land on the floor of the room that is about to become a battlefield, the monsters there react. The Witch roars, and then the Wraiths follow suit before they all charge at the two girls. Black vines burst out of the ground, each of them holding a sharp scissor blade

Mami raises her arms and twirls in place, summoning several of her rifles in a circle around her. “Seems like we’ll have to get past all these Wraiths if we hope to get close to the Witch!” she announces as she takes one rifle in each hand and fires them at the advancing monsters.

Madoka nods, having already knocked an arrow, takes aim at the robed beasts and lets the projectile fly.

As I watch the battle from above, I see the skeletal creatures advancing. Unlike the familiars from before, they are strong enough to take a few hits from either of the girls without getting obliterated. There’s also the Witch to worry about, and its thorny, scissor-wielding vines, which also advance toward them. This looks like it’ll be a difficult fight, and it puts me on edge. However, Sayaka seems to be calmer than me as she observes them. Maybe she’s seen them fight more difficult battles.

The Wraith at the front finally succumbs and disperses into smoke. However, the other three, while wounded, are still advancing. Madoka’s the first one to move her position, moving away from Mami as she continues to knock arrows and shoot them towards the monsters. However, Mami doesn’t move until just before the Wraiths get within striking range of her. Once she does, she waves her arm to the side, and the rifles she had summoned float up and follow her as she runs around the room.

Both girls run in opposite directions, with two Wraiths following Mami and the other one pursuing Madoka. Though the pink-haired girl is only being tailed by one enemy, the Witch decides to attack her first to make up for the defeated Wraith. Madoka fires one arrow at her closest enemy, but when she knocks the next, a scissor blade is already heading in her direction. As I tense up and grit my teeth, she jumps up in the air, flipping backwards, then points her arrow down at the blade and fires it. The force of the magical projectile slams the blade into the ground, forcefully pushing the Wraith back, and making the Witch roar in pain as the tip of its vine is destroyed in the blast.

Meanwhile, Mami continues to run from her pursuers, firing back at them. After a while, she throws her empty rifles away, turns fully, stops, and then summons ribbons from the ground that wrap themselves around the monsters, holding them in place. She grabs her two remaining floating rifles, slowly approaches and, as the monsters helplessly struggle against their bindings, she begins rapidly firing into their heads. Not long afterwards, they both are obliterated.

However, shortly after, an unarmed vine wraps itself around the blonde’s ankle and pulls her upward, dangling her upside down as she cries out.

“Mami!” Madoka yells as she knocks another arrow, carefully aiming at the thin vine. She lets the projectile fly, and it goes through the vine, snapping it, and making the witch roar in pain yet again.

Mami yelps again as she is suddenly released from the vine, though she extends her hands and summons a platform of giant ribbons, which catch her before she hits the floor. Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, while Madoka was distracted with saving Mami from the vine, the Wraith that was pursuing her took the opportunity to advance on her, and is now taking swipes at her with its claws. It catches her off-guard, too, and she has to jump back to avoid the first. She tries to sidestep the second attack, but she’s too slow this time, and the monster’s claws catch her arm, rending her flesh. She cries out in pain as I widen my eyes, looking at the blood flowing from the open wounds.

“Madoka!” I yell in a panic, while Sayaka grits her teeth.

However, when the beast tries to get her once more, she acts faster, gritting her teeth as she jumps up and smacks the monster on its head with her bow. The attack makes it stumble backwards. When Madoka lands again, she quickly takes aim at her enemy, and at the same time, Mami takes aim at it, too. They both fire simultaneously at it, which causes it to fall over and disappear.

Madoka then turns towards Sayaka and I and grins, showing us her thumb, to indicate that she’s alright. I can still see that wound, though, so I’m not entirely relieved, but Sayaka sighs before smiling a little herself.

The pink-haired girl really doesn’t have much time to reassure us, though, since right after doing so, another scissor blade swings toward her. She narrowly avoids it, jumping over the blade. She knocks another arrow, then runs off, taking aim towards the main body of the witch. She fires, and it hits it with a blast of pink light that makes it shriek. Not missing a beat, Madoka aims another arrow at it, and fires, all while running around the right side of the room, narrowly dodging the Witch’s blades. She continues to fire repeatedly, and even though some shots miss, the monster seems to become more and more furious with each shot.

Eventually, it grabs her with a vine by her ankle and lifts her up, and the girl yells as she’s flipped upside down, lifted off the ground and surrounded with blades.

“No!!!” I yell, almost stepping off of the platform Sayaka and I are on as I take a step toward the battle. The blue-haired girl stops me, and she’s the only reason why I don’t actually fall off.

However, just before the Witch tears Madoka to pieces, I notice that Mami has jumped up in the air, her arms extended. Her magic summons a gigantic pistol in front of her, so big that she has to wrap her whole body around the handle to be able to trigger it. She aims at the beast, and then…

“ _ Tiro… Finale!!!”  _ she calls out. After that, a big blast emerges from the cannon of the pistol, hitting the Witch head on.

The beast roars in pain, thrashing about as the light from the blast continues to shine. Its vines and other limbs begin to dissipate, causing Madoka to be dropped. She manages to flip in the air so her head isn’t the first part of her body to hit the ground, but her uninjured arm hits it instead, eliciting a pained grunt from her.

As Mami lands on her feet, the Witch finally disappears, and the scenery around us shifts once more to that of the abandoned building from before. Both girls are covered in light before they return to their normal forms. Mami quickly turns towards Madoka and heads toward her, kneeling beside her with a frown on her face. At the same time, Sayaka and I dash toward her and kneel beside her too.

“Madoka, you alright?” Sayaka asks first, though we all mean to do so.

She looks up at us, teeth gritted in pain, but then smiles. “I’m fine…” she manages to say, but she looks too pained for that to be true.

Mami quickly places her Power Gem on top of her open palm and moves the latter close to the claw wound on Madoka’s left arm. With her other hand hovering a few centimetres above it, a sphere of yellow light appears around the gem, enveloping the injury. After a few moments, it begins to heal slowly, though fast enough for our eyes to notice it.

The pink-haired girl sighs, then looks up at Mami. “Thank you, Mami.”

The blonde shakes her head. “Don’t thank me for this. I really should have been more careful…”

Madoka smiles and shakes her head. “It’s fine… You did the best you could.”

As Mami sighs in frustration, Sayaka and I look on, worried. After seeing the two magical girls fight in detail, I can see why Sayaka hasn’t decided whether she wants to be a magical girl or not…

Mami finishes healing Madoka, though, and she’s as good as new, if albeit a bit sore. They gather the grief seed and grief cubes left behind by the monsters, which can be used to prolong the amount of time a magical girl can fight nowadays, and after we decide it’s already pretty late, we all head home.

That night, I lay awake in bed for quite a while, considering the situation with these girls. Being a magical girl is definitely not a game, and deciding to become one is not an easy decision, either. The planet definitely must be protected from the Incubators, though, and this appears to be the best method… It’s definitely a complicated situation.

* * *

Despite the frequent battles against magical monsters, the group of girls that took me in are still very friendly. I spend the next few days with them, sharing lunch and simply talking about nothing in particular for most of the time. Hitomi is there often, so we don’t usually talk about magical girl business. I quickly learn that she’s a refined girl from a high class family, though she means well.

One day, Sayaka, Madoka and I head to the mall after Mami excuses herself to study for an upcoming exam. We head to the record store, and Sayaka buys a few albums.

When we exit the store, the blue-haired girl turns to us and, joining her hands in front of her, she asks us something in a very uncharacteristically bashful manner. “So, uh… Could you two please accompany me to the hospital? I want to go visit Kyosuke…” she says, letting out a small, nervous chuckle as she rubs the back of her neck, averting her eyes. I am very surprised by this strange behaviour of hers.

Madoka, however, simply smiles at her. “Figured you’d ask after buying all those records,” she says, then nods. “Let’s go, then!”

I don’t really have any objections, so we all make our way to the Mitakihara General Hospital, where I ended up hospitalised for all that time. As we make our way there, I tell them that Natsuki, my caretaker, works there, and at their suggestion, I text her to tell her I’m going there with a couple friends. She replies that she’s a bit busy, but that she’ll try to make some time to meet us.

We arrive there and, while Sayaka goes inside to visit this Kyosuke she talked about, Madoka and I sit in the waiting room. It really feels strange to be here as a visitor rather than a patient.

After a short while, I speak up. “So… Who is Kyosuke?” I ask the other girl.

“Hm? Oh, Kyosuke Kamijo. He’s just an old friend of hers,” she tells me, smiling a bit. “I don’t really know him myself, though, but she likes him a lot.”

I raise an eyebrow at this statement. The wording seemed a bit specific.  _ Is Sayaka attracted to this boy?  _ I wonder. “Why is he hospitalised, though?”

She hums in thought for a moment before she answers. “He had a car accident, I think. Ended up unable to move most of his body after that…” she explains, sounding somewhat saddened. “I take it he’s recovering, though, but, well… Sayaka doesn’t actually tell me much, so I don’t really know.”

I nod in response, though this answer intrigues me. So far, Sayaka and Madoka seemed to me like the kind of friends that stuck together through thick and thin, and that they kept nothing from each other. However, this apparently seems to be a subject that Sayaka doesn’t talk about often.

After that, I see Natsuki finally arriving through the corner of my eye, holding three cans of orange juice in her hands. After seeing us, she smiles and approaches us, and I stand up, smiling as well.

“Hey there, Homura,” she greets me.

“Hello, Natsuki,” I tell her before we embrace each other.

She lets go of me and turns to Madoka, who has also stood up. “You must be Madoka Kaname, right?”

The girl smiles at my caretaker, nodding. “Yep! It’s nice to meet you, ma’am!” she responds.

Natsuki chuckles a little in response. “Please, call me Natsuki. I wouldn’t ask a friend of Homura’s to be so formal with me,” she says as we all sit down. She offers us two of the cans. “Here, I brought some juice.”

We take the cans, thanking her, then we open them and sip from them.

“So, for how long have you been taking care of Homura?” Madoka asks Natsuki.

“About six years. I was a friend of her parents, and when they passed away, I decided to adopt her,” she explains.

I nod. “We already got along well before that, and she was usually around to help when my heart decided to act up,” I add to the story. “While I was… upset my parents died, I didn’t have any complaints about Natsuki becoming my new guardian.”

Natsuki gave a small, sarcastic scoff. “I think ‘upset’ is putting it mildly, though I can’t exactly blame you,” she says, chuckling again. “I was pretty distraught myself.”

Madoka nods in response. “I see… It’s a bit interesting how Mami has a similar story, actually…”

I look towards her, interested. “Yeah, Haruka takes care of her, right?”

She nods in response. “Right. They don’t really live together, but Haruka checks up on her daily, and stays the night frequently. She also is her legal guardian, so there’s that,” she adds, then laughs a bit.

Natsuki rubs the back of her neck after hearing this. “Mami is the oldest one in your friend group, right?”

Both Madoka and I nod affirmatively.

Natsuki hums in thought. “I find it a bit strange that her guardian would live somewhere else…”

“Mami’s very independent, actually. She can take care of herself!” Madoka reassures. “Haruka has said that she would like to live with her, but her circumstances don’t really let her.”

Natsuki nods in response, though I can see she’s still wondering what sort of circumstances could lead a teen’s legal adult to live in a different house than said teen. “I see…” Deciding to change the subject, though, she speaks again. “Tell me, Madoka, how have things been going in school for Homura?”

“N-Natsuki!” I cut in, embarrassed that she’d bring that up with one of my friends.

“Things have been going well, actually!” responds the girl before my outburst has any effect. “There were a few girls that picked on her, but they haven’t bothered her in a few days, because she’s been with us!”

“M-Madoka!” I exclaim at her.

Natsuki nods in response. “Homura did tell me about it, but I thought she may have been downplaying it… Good to know she wasn’t, and that she has good friends now. She has never really been able to make friends easily…”

“Wh-why are you telling her that!?” I question in disbelief. Then my two tormentors find it too difficult to keep holding their laughter in. “Y-you two are mean…”

“I’m sorry, Homura!” Madoka manages to say in between laughing. “It was just too funny!”

“She’s right, she’s right!” adds Natsuki. “I’m sorry, though.”

I cross my arms and look at them, Natsuki on my right and Madoka on my left, then I huff and close my eyes, which causes them to chuckle a bit more. I can’t help but join in, though.

Natsuki checks her watch, and sighs. “Well, I’m sorry, girls, but I have to go back to work,” she says as she gets up. “It was nice meeting you, Madoka,” she tells the girl with a smile.

Madoka returns the smile. “Same here! Hope to see you soon, Natsuki!”

Natsuki nods, then walks off, dropping her empty can into a rubbish bin on her way out.

Madoka lets out a small giggle. “She’s pretty cool.”

I smile at her. “Yeah… She’s pretty great.”

Just then, Sayaka walks into the room, and finds us. “Alright, I’m done!” she announces as she gets to us. We stand up and make our way back out, throwing our empty cans away.

We chat normally as we walk back, though when I turn to look at Sayaka as she says something, I frown, spotting something strange in the background.

All three of us stop after this. “What is it, Homura?” asks Sayaka.

I point towards the small black object sticking out of the outer wall of the hospital. “That… Isn’t that a grief seed?”

“What!?” Madoka reacts, looking towards it.

“It is!” Sayaka exclaims, getting closer. “It’s about to hatch, too. W-we have to get Mami!”

Without even thinking, I pull out my MaGiUD and call her from my contacts list. “On it!” I say as I press the device to my ear.

“Let’s get inside, quick!” Madoka says, approaching the seed and using her Power Gem to open a portal into the Barrier. Right after, she jumps in. Sayaka follows her in, and then I enter. Thankfully, the MaGiUD is made to work even while inside a Barrier.

It’s very dark inside. The floor and walls are black and brown, with dull polka dots littered all over the place. There seem to be giant food articles strewn around the ground, making pathways, but they all look wrong somehow, as if they were rotten.

Just then, Mami picks up her MaGiUD. “Homura? Is something the matter?”

“Th-there’s a Witch about to hatch in the outer wall of the General Hospital! We’re inside the Barrier already, you have to hurry!” I tell her.

“I’m on my way!” she says, then the line is cut.

I sigh, put my MaGiUD away, then look at the other two girls and nod.

Madoka transforms into her magical girl form, summoning her bow, and pulls the string, making an arrow appear on it. With her weapon ready to fire at a moment's notice, we all make our way deeper into the Barrier.

Unlike the other Barriers I have seen these past few days, this one is surprisingly quiet. There’s no familiars anywhere, things aren’t moving, the only sound is a low-pitched, slow and distant hum, and the lighting is dull, making it somewhat hard to see.

“Barriers are creepier when the Witch hasn’t hatched yet…” I comment.

“Yeah…” Sayaka agrees, looking pretty unsettled herself.

“You two stay close to me, alright? I won’t let anything happen to you,” reassures Madoka.

We walk for a few more minutes, not finding anything of note. We walk through one door, and the food is replaced with pills, medicine bottles, and needles. We continue to weave through this labyrinth, and eventually, we arrive at a very spacious room filled with more food, and even featuring some absurdly high tables and chairs. There, we see a group of four Wraiths, but no Witch.

We stop at the entrance, wide-eyed, as the monsters look at us. They all roar, then charge at us.

Madoka lifts her bow and immediately lets her arrow fly, nailing the closest Wraith on its head. It falls over, but the others simply hop over it and continue to advance.

“Hide!” Madoka quickly commands as she begins moving to the left.

Sayaka and I nod, and we run to the right, hiding behind a gigantic donut. We peek over it to look at the battle.

Once we’ve gotten behind the object, Madoka begins running towards the group of Wraiths. Once she’s close enough, she jumps over them, firing several arrows at them as she sails above them. She lands on top of the one she knocked over earlier, which was already beginning to get up, and fires another arrow at its head. It disintegrates, and she lands on the ground.

Not missing a beat, she quickly turns and fires another arrow at the remaining three, which were still trying to pick themselves up after the previous barrage. One of them is thrown back to the ground, but the other ones dodge her next few arrows. They charge at her, and she begins running to the side as she fires. Finally, she manages to hit one of them and knock it down, but the other one catches up to her and swipes at her head. She ducks under it, trips it with a quick swipe of her feet before smacking it with her bow. It rolls over and disappears.

The other two then close in on her. One swings its claws downwards, so she sidesteps to avoid it, but then the other one grabs her arm. She grunts in pain as the claws dig into her flesh, but then she smacks the Wraith’s arm away, quickly knocking another arrow and firing it at the monster’s head. It falls over and turns to smoke.

The other one tries to grab her, but she jumps back a bit and dodges the claws. She quickly jumps up and swings her bow at its face, hitting it right on the head, which causes it to reel back slightly…

But not enough, as it rebounds immediately and grabs her head, making her scream in pain.

“Madoka!” I yell in horror at the sight.

“Where in the hell is Mami!?” Sayaka questions, alarmed, as she looks towards the entrance to the room.

The Wraith then raises Madoka further before slamming her against the ground hard enough to break it. It straightens up, looking at the girl lying prone for a moment before raising its claw…

I close my eyes, not able to watch what follows…

But instead of a claw digging through flesh and a pained wail, I hear a loud blast. I open my eyes, and I see the Wraith disappearing, and Mami running towards the collapsed Madoka.

The blonde kneels beside the injured girl. “Madoka, you alright!?”

The girl groans, raising her hand and placing it over Mami’s.

However, shortly afterwards, the room suddenly becomes brightly light, and the low hum from before is replaced with the strange whistles and buzzes normally heard within a Witch’s Barrier. Spiral shapes appear on the ceiling, and the walls begin warping as if they were alive.

“The Witch… It’s hatching!” I announce.

As if on cue, a box meant for some sort of snack drops on top of the tallest chair in the room, which then opens by itself, and it shrinks until it disappears, leaving behind its contents: a small, creepy-looking doll.

Mami quickly stands up, summoning a rifle to fire at it. The doll doesn’t defend itself, and the shot knocks it off the chair. The girl jumps towards it, firing her rifle repeatedly at it. The doll falls to the ground, and Mami lands beside it. She presses the barrel of her rifle against its forehead, fires once, and then kicks it, causing it to be lifted off the ground again. Summoning another rifle, she points both of them at it and fires rapidly, until the doll seems to burst.

Mami smiles, but then, out of the remains of the doll, appears a giant, serpent-like being with razor-sharp, giant teeth, and a face resembling a clown, its body black with red and blue polka dots. The Witch’s true form.

As the Witch grins at Mami, she looks terrified. The beast opens its maw, aiming to bite the girl’s head off…

“Mami, no!!!” both Sayaka and I cry in unison.

However, out of nowhere, Mami is suddenly pushed out of the way. Madoka has somehow gotten to her in time…

Though she isn’t fast enough to clear the Witch’s teeth herself. They slam shut around her leg, causing her to wail in pain.

Mami quickly cries out, pointing one of her rifles at the beast and firing at it. It roars, releasing Madoka, and dropping her on the ground.

The pink-haired girl’s breathing is laboured, and she twists on the floor in pain, holding her leg, which is also bent somewhere where it shouldn’t be, and drenched in crimson blood.

Mami sees this for a moment, then grits her teeth and shouts at the Witch. “How dare you!?”


End file.
